Different But Not Changed
by HecateA
Summary: Parvati's summer plans did not involve walking in on her sister and best friend, nor did she plan on the heart-to-heart that would follow. Oneshot.


**Author's Note: **Enjoy!

**Disclaimer: **I own what? Nothing.

**Hogwarts: **Assignment 9, Games & Sports: Party Games, Task #2: Never Have I Ever - write about someone confessing something for the first time.

**Warnings: **NA

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**Different But Not Changed**

Eventually, it was Padma who cracked open the door—but only as much as she needed to slip into the room and then shut it behind her. She bit her lip, looked down at her feet, and leaned against the door.

"We… we didn't know which one of us you'd rather see if—if you wanted to see either of us," Padma said.

Parvati was curled up on the window seat where she read and listened to the radio and quilted and did a hundred other things. Really, she wanted to be curled up in bed right now under as many blankets as she could find, even if they were in the middle of summer. But Padma had used to creep over from her room for "sleepovers" there when they'd been little, and she and Lavender had spent entire afternoons sitting there, laughing and gossiping and painting each other's toenails and doing a hundred other things. It felt like a place of one hundred small betrayals that she didn't know what to call.

Padma didn't say anything. She chewed her lip.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I… I knew you'd be upset, but I didn't know… I didn't know what to do or what to say or how. This wasn't how I wanted you to find out."

"I could have found out any number of other ways if you'd made an effort," Parvati said. "Either one of you could have told me the truth, but instead you kept it quiet and snuck around and… well, I found out how I found out."

By seeing her little sister and her best friend in bed, that was.

Padma tugged on her shirt self-consciously, also recalling it.

"When you introduced me to Lavender, brought her home for the summer for the first time, it was like a fog was lifted," Padma said at last. "I don't know if that helps, but this wasn't just a thing, it was _something." _

Parvati didn't reply. Eventually, Padma went on—maybe to fill the silence, maybe because she really needed her sister to understand.

"She made me make sense. She made me realize why I never had anything to tell you when you talked to me about boys. She made me realize why my heart beat fast at all the wrong times. And more than anything else, she eventually made me realize that I was okay—that I wasn't broken, that I wasn't the only one like me. She made me okay. She made me better, actually, more myself than I knew I had in me."

Parvati leaned her forehead against the windowpane and took a deep breath, shaky despite her best efforts.

"I didn't know how to tell you that because she was your friend first," Padma said.

"And I was your sister first," Parvati said. She turned her head to face Padma. People joked that it must be like looking at a mirror, but no—they may be twins, but Parvati knew very well she was looking at someone different, at her sister. Her beautiful sister with big eyes, a crooked nose, a left ear bigger than the right, a harder smile to tease out than her own, thinner eyebrows, a birthmark on her neck that Parvati lacked…

She swallowed and it hurt, as if she'd bumped into the tears that were welling up.

"Before I was even me I was your sister," Parvati said. "I thought I was good at that. I thought you could tell me anything. That I could help you through anything, like you can for me."

Padma shook her head. "Not this, Par. This fog was only surrounding me, and this… I'm like this, Parvati. I like girls. You don't, so you can't really… You don't know what it's like."

"Because you never told me," Parvati snapped back.

"Because you're not living it," Padma snapped back just as quickly. "We're different, Parvati. We've always been different, but this is more different, this is… I can't explain it to you and you can't feel it either because we're different. Our hearts beat differently and our insides work differently and that's just how it is. This big part of who I am and how I feel is… I was going to have to figure it out on my own. But I didn't because I found Lavender."

"Is that how she feels too?" Parvati asked. Annoyingly, her eyes got misty. She rubbed at her eyes. "Like we're too different?"

"I can't speak for her," Padma said. "That… that wouldn't be fair."

"Is she still here?" Parvati asked absent-mindedly, picking at a loose thread in her jean shorts.

"Of course," Padma said. "She's downstairs, she didn't want to leave if you were still upset..."

"Don't say 'of course' as if I have any way of knowing anything for sure," Parvati snapped.

When her sister shriveled back up, Parvati immediately froze, realizing she may have gone too far.

"We love you," Padma said. "I love you. That's still for sure. I'm different, but I'm not changed, Par."

"You're just a better sister than I am, because you can walk me through fire and I can't… I couldn't help you with this," Parvati said. Her eyes were definitely damp now. "Like Lavender's a better friend because I… I didn't know, I didn't notice, I couldn't be there for you, and now I'm yelling…"

"You're not yelling," Padma said. She was crying too—they couldn't look at each other crying without this happening, it drove their parents mad. "You're just angry because I wasn't honest and I should have told you, I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Parvati said. "I'm sorry."

"No," Padma said, shaking her head. "I'm really sorry, I should have told you."

"I shouldn't have gotten mad," Parvati said.

"Oh, Merlin," another teary voice from the hallway said. Padma cracked open the door and there stood Lavender in her summer dress, braid hanging over one shoulder and eyes also brimming with tears. "You two need to just hug and make up so that I can have a turn hugging and making up too…"

Padma nodded and crossed the room to find her place in Parvati's arms.

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**Stacked with: **Hogwarts; Shipping War; Fall Bingo

**Individual Challenge(s): **Sapphic Bribery; Black Ribbon; Black Ribbon Redux; Gryffindor MC (x2); Ravenclaw MC; Summer Vacation; Seeds; Golden Times; Old Shoes; Trope it Up C (Secret Relationship); Themes & Things A (Family); Themes & Things B (Betrayal); Themes & Things E (Skirt/Dress); The 3rd Rule; Ethnic & Present; Rian-Russo Inversion; Flags & Ribbons; In a Flash; Yellow Ribbon; Yellow Ribbon Redux

**Word count: **1024

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_**Fall Bingo**_

**Space (Prompt): **4C (Fog/Mist)


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